


Love in times of isolation

by black_polar_bear



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Depression, F/F, Loneliness, Long-Distance Relationship, Pandemic - Freeform, Virus, d’ya get it?, its a metaphor!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24102481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_polar_bear/pseuds/black_polar_bear
Summary: This wasn’t  how things were supposed to happen.Adora was supposed to be a soldier of the Horde Empire for just one year, get enough credits to get her and Catra out of the Fright Zone and travel through the galaxy playing music for a living.But life had other plans, a deadly virus spread trough the empire, making soldiers like Adora little more than toilet paper delivery girls.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Kudos: 5





	Love in times of isolation

_ I opened my eyes and there you were, sleeping next to me, the sun coming through curtainless windows bathing your beautiful face and silhouette with an orange tint. Morning already? I don’t want to go, in fact I don’t want to move, I want us to stay right here frozen in time on a bed that wasn’t ours, in a house that we could never afford, let the world continue without us and let us drink off of the constellations.  _

_ So I touch my forehead against yours and close my eyes, you will give me shit later for not getting up earlier but I don’t care. _

_ You are worth it. _

* * *

Horde soldier Adora of the 17th division woke up, feeling somehow wearier than before she went to bed. A familiar alarm sounded at the back of her head . “I’m up Hope, turn down the alarm, code 0-55” she said between yawns. 

“Alarm system turned off. Good morning Adora” answered the AI. 

Adora hopped down from the top bunk bed which was built horizontally into the wall, she started her morning stretch routine. There was no one in the bottom bed or in the other 60 bunk beds to her left, which were all unmade (future Adora will make them, eventually) or in the 199 to the left which were still tidily made waiting for her to change that. After all her muscles were properly stretched she jogged out of the long narrow hallway known as the sleeping quarters, and into the training room.

Like every ‘morning’ for the last 120 days, Light Hope arranged an obstacle course, each day a different way to make it interesting, but Adora ran through it without paying much attention. It was not the AI’s fault, there were just so many combinations there could be with the same obstacle. She ran, swinged, ducked, climbed, tiptoed, dodge, springed, dashed and other known variations of running. Then she went to the showers, taking off her sweaty underwear and tossing next to a pile of equally sweaty clothes on the floor of the bathroom, future Adora will do the laundry… eventually.

She turned on the one shower out of 20 in a massive room with no walls to hide your shame, if there were anybody else that is. She put on a strawberry scent shampoo, she loved the smell, it reminded her of Glimmer and the first week in the military academy, she didn’t know what shampoo even was until Glimmer told her why her hair looked so shiny, now she didn’t know how she had lived without it.

Adora walked into the kitchen wearing the standard soldier grey cargo pants, white tank top and a towel over her shoulders. “Hi Light of my life” she said as she passed the blue hologram standing next to the fridge. “Hello Adora would you like me to cook breakfast for you?” “ nah I got it” she opened the fridge compartment, filled with hundreds of packages in rows, after eying them all she decided that she was in a eggs n bacon mood, she took one of the packages, rip it open with her teeth while her other hand was busy turning on the stove, then she poured the dust on a deep pan, added a cup of water and left it to heat up.

“So… what’s up?”

“Any important news should have been mailed to your communication device, were they not?”

Adora sighed and picked up the pan, the dust had boiled into grey puffy mass that could be mistaken for moldy bread but at least it did taste like eggs and bacon.

After breakfast Adora started the check up routine, or the lap race as she liked to call it. It started in the commander’s cockpit on the top of the ship, from there to the engine room to check the energy motor located in the nether part which gave the whole ship its green luminescence light, then to the valve room in the bottom to check the water pressure, then the gravity room to check... well gravity and finally back to the cockpit. 

The first week it took her half a day to get around the massive ship, it didn’t help that the Horde’s ships felt like a maze designed by brutalists architectures, giant blocks of metal with sharp corners, exact-looking corridors and pipes coming in and out of the walls for no apparent reason.

But her perseverance and, well, boredom honestly led her to start doing it trotting and then running, even parkouring it through the metal tubes to get by faster. When the empire first gave her the maintenance instructions, she thought the check was a waste of time since any AI could do it, now she was glad she had an excuse to move around. She checked the clock on her tablet, 1 seconds slower than yesterday and 2 seconds slower than the previous day. She had to do better.

But still, the run left her with some free time before the satellite beacons align. Meaning she Had some free time before she could call her friends. So she went to the commander’s cockpit, one of her favourite rooms, why? Well it was the only room in the whole ship with a window, it was located on the roof exactly on top of the commander's chair, letting her look up at the stars whenever she had to work on the computer. And work she had to do, next to the chair her acoustic guitar was there, old and full of tape and stickers. It was Catra’s gift, how ironic, the sweetest gift she could’ve had ended up putting a whole galaxy between them.

_ Let the past be the past  _ she thought, right now she needed to write some good music, for her, for Catra. She opened the document on the computer with the chords, notes and lyric ideas, picked up the guitar and… nope nothing, her head completely empty. Fuck, didn’t she dreamed of a melody last night? Where did it go? Apparently out of her head, and left with every other musical idea in Adora’s mind. Maybe a little exercise will get the blood on her brain flowing, yeah that usually works.

She went to the training facilities to do some weights, first with the rubber hex dumbbells, then the adjustable dumbbells, then kettlebells and finally barbell weights. She finished in 2 hours then headed back to the cockpit, the guitar was still in the same spot waiting for her and this time she was ready, she is gonna write a love song so passionate the suns will feel cold by comparison and wait a minute, what was that green dot in the corner of the room, is it… oh yeah its her Tennis ball! She’s been looking for it forever, what was her record again? 156 maybe, she could do better.

Light Hope interrupted her hardcore tennis hand session “The satellite beacons are at a suitable position Adora, you have one hour of communication between solar systems”. Shit, already? It was hard to keep track of time when all you see are endless blackness and stars. Well nothing to do now, she sat on the cockpit’s chair, two screens popped out.

One of them said ‘connecting call’ the other one showed her chat with Catra, still no new texts. Adora shouldn’t be surprised, the only thing Catra had text her was a “fuck off” and that was over a year ago. Maybe she lost her phone or she’s busy, maybe she should send her another text, not another paragraph but a short ‘hi how are you are you safe’

“Adora!” A voice coming from the second screen pulled her from the one-sided chat in which Adora was already 500 words deep in a new ‘I’m sorry Catra please talk to me’ text. The voice came from Glimmer, facetiming from the other side of the galaxy. “Adora, were you tearing your mind apart writing hundreds of paragraphs asking  _ her  _ for forgiveness even though she should be the one apologising not you?”

Uhh… nooo?” Even with the screen lagging and hundreds of light years away, she could feel Glimmer’s disapproving gaze.

“Seriously Adora, is she like the only person in existence that can find your g-spot?”

“WHAT? No-I mean I don’t-we don’t it’s not like that okay?

“Then I'm gonna kick her ass if I ever meet her”

“That’s not fair Glimmer, I was the one who left you know?”

“And if she was such an important person to you she should respect your decision”

“It’s not as simple as that”

“Try me”

“I… the day before I left, we spent the whole day together you know? at night she just hugged me and cried and in the morning I was gone before she could wake up… I never said goodbye Glimmer, I remember every second from that day but I don’t recall ever saying goodbye or ‘see you later’ or anything like that”

Before Adora could get sucked into a black hole sadness and memories, Bow came in to the rescue. “Hooooow’s the best Horde soldier in the entire galaxy?” He said cheerful as ever, it immediately made Adora smile, she could only see part of Bow’s face on the screen. “I’m fine bow, just bored out of my mind” 

“Then I have just the perfect cure for you...” Then glimmer started listing dozens of movies and series that Adora should totally watch. And she would, eventually, just not right now and she didn’t have the heart to tell glimmer that she wasn’t in the mood to watch new things. She had resigned to just re-watch her favourite sitcom show after the first weeks.

“... yeah we binged that one one night and didn’t stop until the sun came out, it was SO good” Bow finished for Glimmer. They were so lucky to be neighbours at times like these, it was easy for him to sneak into her house even during absolute curfew.

“But what about you, do you have important soldier stuff to do?”

“Heh not really, there’s still a lot of time left before my next assignment”

“Actually, that is incorrect” said the AI behind her, making her jump a little. 

“Light Hope! What do you mean?” Adora said with a hand on her chest feeling her heartbeat get back to normal.

“We are meant to arrive at the space station GG-4 in order to collect 6 tons of toilet paper in two hours , I have sent you the report, have you not read it?”

“Uhmm… yeees?”

“6 tons of toilet paper! Holy shit! The whole Etheria solar system is in shortage, Where are you going with them?”asked Glimmer

“I don’t know” Adora checked the un-read report on her tablet. “Some other space station at the other corner of the galaxy”

“Ugh I swear if we don’t get more toilet paper I’ll join the rebellion”

“NO! no Glimmer you promised you won’t join a rebellion or I’ll kill you” Adora’s heart beat got extremely high again.

“Haha don’t worry Adora, I’ll keep her sane enough” said Bow

“You better” I don’t want you to end like Mara, she thought.

They chatted a little more, although there wasn’t much to chat up about when you’re stuck in one place honestly, but at least they were safe and sound. They said their goodbyes and sent their kisses and hugs. There was still 5 minutes of the golden hour, she might as well try chatting with Lonnie before the unavoidable isolation came back.

-sup

-Catra’s fine don’t worry 

-what? I didn’t ask that

-I know what you meant

-and no, I’m not gonna tell her anything for you 

\- >:(

-Can you at least tell me if she’s getting my texts?

-Of course she is! What you thought?

-idk maybe her phone fell in the couch or she’s been too busy or smthn

-Adora we’re trapped in a tiny ass apartment with nothing to do

-take a hint!

Well when she said it like that it made it obvious to, but Adora was always the optimist.

-well thanks anyway I’m glad she’s okay

-you’re a good friend. 

The last text wasn't delivered, meaning the golden hour was over and it will take 8 hours for her message to cross the galaxy and get to her friend.

“I recommend getting ready for the shipment transfer Adora”

Right, she still had a job to do.

The Ship embarked on the space station, Adora got to the hangar in a full body grey hazmat suit, she entered the pin to open the hangar and, as per pandemic protocol, put both hands on the yellow circles on the wall.

Trough the opening gate came another soldier in full body hazmat suit and a tablet on their hands. Behind them, gravitational pads carried giant containers full of toilet paper.

Adora noticed the soldier had a broad tail, like Rogelio they must be from the same species right? How many tailed species were there anyway, was DT from the same species? She should really ask them next time she sees them… although that could be a mighty long time, better text them on the next golden hour.

The soldier was now getting back to the space station and Adora waved at them as happily and friendly as anyone in an intimidating hazmat suit could. The other soldier regarded her for a moment, then raised his hand and continued walking out from where he came from.

Wellp that was the last humanoid interaction she was gonna have for a while.

After everything was done she went back to the cockpit, her eyes felt heavy, telling her it was nighttime or at least enough time had passed for her to want to sleep. She saw the guitar, still untouched and then the computer, she sat on the computer and her song notes were still there, untouched. 

She closed the file, opened an incognito window and pulled her pants down. She was not in the mood to sleep, but also not in the mood to do well anything really.Maybe this will make her at least feel slightly good. Usually some memories of Catra were enough to get her going but those were getting coated in melancholy by each passing day. 

So she browses the web for a video to put on, but even that simple task takes quite a while, nothing hits the right spot for her, there were Magicats videos which didn’t help, maybe she was in a ‘buff lady’ kinda mood. 

She took too long, by the time she came Light Hope was programmed to wake her up in a couple of hours. She dragged her feet across the empty metal floors until she reached the sleeping quarters, wrapping herself on the next bunk bed and tries to sleep hugging herself because no one else will.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes this is an allegory for the pandemic   
> What are you doing during quarantine instead of homework? Do you relate to this or nah.
> 
> Comments and critiques are greatly appreciated :3


End file.
